


Altered Aethers

by Kaiwren



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauder’s Era, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix It, Wolf Pack Dynamics, animagi, not a/b/o
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiwren/pseuds/Kaiwren
Summary: After killing Voldemort in the Battle of Hogwarts, the Death Eaters never stop fighting. Eventually, Harry, Hermione, Ron and others take the last path to safety- back in time.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Altered Aethers

Harry cast another ward, grinning darkly when a Death Eater’s blue-hued spell bounced back, cutting deep into the Death Eater’s cloak. He glanced behind him for only a minute: Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Bill were also casting curses and shields, holding back the tens of black-cloaked attackers. Fred and George were scampering between the Death Eaters ranks as their raccoon animagi, shifting back human only long enough to send a cutting curse or permanent transfiguration spell beneath an un expecting opponents shield. Harry heard their cackles of glee from across their besieged encampment, before shifting back into Renegade and Rapier. Harry ducked as a green spell- fuck, that was an avada- flew over his head, and cast a quick bombarda back. A dozen or so of moldy’s goons flew back, more than one in pieces. Oops. Bit too much power, then. Well, most of his spells were overpowered anyway. He was casting with both wands at the moment, Elder and Holly working in unison to fight the attackers. Breathing heavily, he relaxed for a second with his tiny respite, before turning to Luna and Fleur. Fleur was carving runes into the ground with an athame, and Luna was doing the same with her wand into the air.

Harry quickly anchored a Parseltongue repelling ward into the ground he was meant to be guarding, the dark magic slithering down his Holly and phoenix wand. Curiously, his holly wand had taken quicker to parcel spells than the Elder wand, likely due to the Elder wand's greater experience with Latin-based spells. Turning his back to the ward, he rushed to Luna and Fleur. Passing by Denis and Colin, who were sniping the Death Eaters with diffindos and expelliarmuses from under the remnants of a Wizarding tent, he placed another ward over them- it would allow only his magic and theirs to pass through, blocking any attack. 

Harry turned his back from them again, completing the quick dash to the witches casting tunes. “Brightmoon!” He called. “I’m going to carve the Parcel runeset, then cast it- grab Teddy! He’s in the trees!”

Luna shifted into her Snowy Owl form, before darting off into the trees above. Her spots, normally hidden, fluffed up, aiding her camouflage with the trees. Harry, though, looked away- she’d reach him in time, but he had none to spare. The death eaters were closing into the interior wards of their camp. If they broke those, they would fail.

Voldemort had already been killed in the Battle of Hogwarts. What they had never expected, however, was for the remaining death munchers to continue their campaign, even without their general. Harry had gone to Voldemort when he called, heartbroken and hopeless after seeing Arthurs’, Remus’, and Tonks’ dead bodies laying in the Great Hall. That was when Tom had destroyed the Horcrux in his scar, when he had destroyed the last of Tom after Neville killed Nagini; when Bellatrix had fallen and the remaining Malfoys, Draco and Narcissa, had fled.

They had rejoiced, if only for the short minutes before Mrs. Weasley had been cut down, vengeance for the death of Lestrange. Percy and Charlie had thrown themselves into the fight with renewed vigor, their magic crackling along their skin, red as their hair. They had only managed to buy time for their family to flee.

Harry had apparated them to Andromeda, at Shell Cottage, only to find her body splayed across her doorstep. She had guarded her grandson fiercely, just long enough for Harry to kill her attackers and save Teddy.

They had been on the run ever since, making plans and searching ancient tomes for magic-any magic- that might save their people, to no avail. After all their work, only one tome had been left unread- a tome that the combined knowledge of the entire pack had been unable to crack most of it, inscribed in a language they could make neither heads nor tales of. 

Or well, that the others could read.

Harry had taken one look at it and asked why they were struggling with a book written in modern English. It had taken him a few moments to realise that it had actually been written in Parseltongue, which had prompted him to make a quick apology to Hermione. She hadn’t been pleased with her implied lack of knowledge. But one spell that he had come across whilst translating had been worth all the trouble- it had given a matrix which, powered properly, could send them back in time. The only twist? The final time matrix had to be cast in parseltongue, and the entire ritual had to be powered by a Parselmouth. The Slytherin line had really been a paranoid bunch of blood purists, but they’d also been extremely thorough- the whole array had been carefully transcribed, with precise instructions on how to calibrate the ritual. 

Which led precisely to Harry carving Parselrunes in fiery letters, whilst pushing every iota of magic he could into the formation of every mark. His magic pulsed, twisting and turning within him, as he gently led it to the runes. The magic hit the runes with a soft sizzle, and a cracking shudder rumbled around the camp. The shadows became deeper, deeper than even the normal twilight in the Forbidden Forest. 

A lone shrieking scream rang out before silence engulfed the camp.

A black fog descended upon Harry’s sight, darkening it until all he could see was the moonless night sky.

Harry sighed softly as he fell into unconsciousness.

—

Harry groaned as he awoke, the bright midday sun piercing daggers into his brain. He blindly groped around his surroundings for his wand, before a hand pushed his arm back to his side.

“Don’t”, Ron ordered. “You’ll only make yourself worse.” Neville raised his wand to Harry’s head, and the world suddenly came back into full clarity.

“Eugh. Thanks, Ron.” Harry groaned. “Wha days’ it?”

“August thirtieth.” Ron answered. “You’ve been asleep for three days, and the next full moons the eighth, so don’t be doing anything risking until then, ya hear?”

“Right, I’m going to go nap in Windsor Castle, then, see the Crown Jewels. Want to come?” Harry joked.

“No.” Ron glared playfully back, before stepping aside. 

A small brown blur leapt at Harry, and he caught the little wolf cub instinctively, cuddling Moonlet close to his chest with comforting whispers. Teddy didn’t shift back, though, still pressing himself as close as possible to Harry. “What’s going on with him?” Harry whispered, trying to reassure the cub. 

“Three days, Harry. Three fu- fudging days. He’s been inconsolable, hasn’t shifted back since he saw you collapse.” Ron sighed. “Hermione says he’ll be alright, says he’s using his Wolf form as a way to process his emotions without having to show them to others, I’m not sure, she was jabbering on about her psychology textbooks again.”

“Aight.” Harry looked around, as if he hadn’t noticed the others were missing. “And where are the others, now?”

Ron grimaced. “Fred and George decided to uh, teach Colin and Dennis how to hunt large game in human form… Ginny said she’d go with to control them?”

Harry shut his eyes, “And the likelihood of her deciding to egg them on instead?”

“Oh, astronomical.” Ron confirmed. “But Hermione, Bill and Fleur are busy setting up wards, Luna and Neville went to go negotiate with the centaurs for a detente, and I think she decided to go see if she could filch a Daily Prophet from the castle, to get a general idea of the current going ons. And I was making sure Teddy didn’t decide to chew on anybody. Er, anything.”

Harry grimaced in agreement. Moonlet had just begun to teeth again, and had been caught more than once chewing on random items. Luckily, he seemed to go more for wood than parchment, so they hadn’t lost too many books, and none of them important. “Right, when everyone gets back- how do you feel like going to the Hog’s for supper? Introduce ourselves to the locals, see if there's any other werewolves shifting in the forest nowadays. We can afford it- we’ve the whole Potter and Black vaults in the chests, it’s more’n enough.”

Ron sighed. “No need to convince me of that. But we’re going to stand out like a broken wand- a thirteen person, Rouge pack, outside of the usual Pack system, with three Weres, two partial weres, a Veela, a bunch of Animagi, and you? Not to mention, one of the partial weres is a three year old cub!”

“No, we need to.” Bills voice rang out the magically enlarged tent. “If we don’t, we’ll just seem like some random wixen showing up right as the students do, and that would make us a target. I went into Hogsmeade for some ingredients, told the Apothecary owner that we’ve been staying here for a while. It’ll at least give us some sort of backstory.”

The two turned to the elder Weasley, Harry still reassuring Teddy rotely. “The wards?” Harry asked, ignoring the part about backstory. Hopefully others would just assume they’d been kicked out of their families. Hopefully.

Bill dipped his head slightly at the avoidance, but nodded. “Needed ashwinder eggs for one of Fleur’s fire wards. No one’ll be walking into our tents, not without a team of curse breakers and a few weeks of wardbreaking.”

A snowy owl swooped in before Harry could reply, a newspaper clutched in her talons. Luna shifted mid flight, landing on the ground with a soft roll. “Got it!” Her normally abnormal, distanced demeanor had momentarily departed in her joy as she brandished the Daily Prophet. “August Thirtieth, nineteen seventy six! Right on the money!” 

A bear followed close behind her, standing up to resume the familiar shape of Neville. “The centaurs say welcome to the forest, and Mars is bright tonight. Apparently, they don’t have trouble with werewolves in either form, and don’t mind us out here. Forest is large enough for the both of us, they said. They also would like to pass on a request that we push the acromaticula back into the deeper section of the forest- apparently they’re getting closer to Hogwarts than they’d like.”

Harry smiled at the both of them, “We can deal with Aragog's lot the eighth, then.”

“Deal with who?” Ginny asked as she strolled back into the tent, Hermione and Fleur at her side.

“The spiders.” Ron clarified, “where’re the Twins?”

“Oh, they’re drying the venison.” Hermione shrugged. “I thought we might as well save it for the winter, since we’ve still plenty of store-bought meat left.”

“Have you already forgotten the Canary Creams, ‘Mione? There’s a reason they don’t cook!” Ron leapt up, as if to rush outside and stop Fred and George from tampering with the food, but was stopped with a soft glare of Hermione’s.

“I trust Colin and Dennis to tell us if they tried anything.” She said.

Ron sat back down in a huff, avoiding the gaze of Hermione. “Oh, alright, then.”

“Well, we’re also going to the Hog’s tonight, so do you want to all come with or does anyone want to stay behind?” Harry asked.

Whines could be heard through the tent walls, and two small blonde boys peaked their heads in. 

“What?” Ron exasperatedly asked.

“Can we…” Colin nudged Dennis to continue the thought, but his brother looked away from his imperative glance. “Can we stick together? Please? I don’t want to split up, please?”

Harry nodded, seeing their anxiety. “That’s fine, but Teddy has to shift back when we get to the outskirts of the forest, you hear?” 

The two boys nodded eagerly, dashing out of the tent towards the edge of the wards, bouncing in place. 

Sighing, Harry pushed him out of bed to follow, steadying himself against the bed for a second, his mind dizzy with the sudden movement. “Let’s go, then. Who’s got dinner?”

Bill half-raised his hand, looking every bit a harried student. “I’ll pay for tonight. I told Aberforth to save us a table when I had the chance. Ducked in to do a spot of recon, as well. Looks the same as it always has, grumpy old man included.”

Hermione pressed her lips together. “There’s no need to be rude, Moonhex.”

Waving a hand, Bill shrugged. “I know, but it’s still true. He’s even got a weird blue goat hidden in the back of the inn!”

“Let’s go.” Harry gently nudged them out of the tents, sure that they’d never stop chattering if they didn’t leave now.

The group walked quietly through the forest, occasionally passing meadows filled with every sort of creature imaginable, unicorns and threshals and deer skittering around the new wixen in the forest. Dark it might be known as, but it was a haven for all life. The trees thinned noticeably as they neared Hogsmeade, and most signs of wildlife disappeared. A dusty track began to appear from underneath the summer greenery, and shops began to grow in the distance. 

“The nargles will be out tonight.”

Luna’s voice broke the false silence they’d kept, and Hermione twisted to look at her. “Think we need to worry about them?”

Luna tilted her head, her silver eyes darting about as she Looked at things they couldn’t see. “No. But Moonspeaker should hold Moonlet. Goats and their kids oft poke their noses where they ought not.”

“Thanks, Luna.” Hermione smiled, then shifted a human-shaped Teddy in her arms, passing him over to Harry with a smile. “I guess the cub is yours, then.”


End file.
